study twins and judge a nation - seriously!

yes, twins have been used in research for comparison reasons.
factors taken into account being environment, food intake, social status and trauma versus er, less trauma.
also leaving one's country of origin and staying in one's country of origin.
work type, personality type, choice of partners, and so much more.
well how about "Know thy country by knowing thy twins?"
I have an ideal case in point.

firstly i am an identical twin.
we lived apart all our adult life.
we choose Creative arts v Social science.
We had a different set of financial criteria to order our lives with.
we had a different culture to absorb into
Different food preferences
different health services and different educational advantage.

Remember one thing though as we go through the list in many other ways.
WE BOTH are HIGHLY intelligent.  we score as such on the tests and would possibly do even higher if we had had hearing aids before the age of 25!
we have 30% hearing, each of us has that amount.

Hearing allows you absorb knowledge, debate, relate and think as those who are hearing people think.
In other words we would be in a different financial and professional zone by far i think if we were hearing people.
another research analysis for this please, but its probably been done.  it has, very few deaf people get to third level status.

so i am choosing to take 'How you judge your country when looking at one set of Identical twins, who are the same nationality.

Criteria for judging is pretty much on every level be it rather simplistic.

financial - she had some, i had none!
educational - she had some but considered better, i had some but considered rather irrelevant.
social - she lived amongst the middle classes and mixed within the middle classes.
I lived amongst working class and mixed with er, no one really.
career advancement - I became good, she became wonderful.
(but who decides?  this is another days debate)
Professional status - I was ok, she was the top.
Health status - both deaf
one rather sad at the beginning and ended in the mental health system once, remember when you read this sentence remember the word SAD and ONCE. both will reveal as very important.

so when the twins are living in different countries for over forty odd years you dont think about prejudice, stigma etc but you DO once the twin comes BACK.
You fully realise who you are then, in the pecking order and your life as it had been seems to take on meaning as to some of the whys.
simply put again, ONCE in the mental health system has coloured ATTITUDE and this has coloured how we reflect on our country.

My country rates badly for me on Attitude i am afraid.
we have bad attitudes.
we treat the mentally ill very badly and have an attitude toward all who ONCE were in the psychiatric system (thank god there is a worldwide shift on the morality of this discipline).
Financial status has to be up there with Attitude too, for those who have better financial stauts defo get a better deal all round, see the twins read the articles and watch this space as there sure is to be more on this.
If you have nothing you will be treated badly, very badly indeed.
if you have some you will be treated well and liked to boot.
Professional status.  this is the biggie of them all and the highest ranking in Ireland, my country is not the politician, but the doctor!
not even the cleric rises over and above a doctor here.
this is the accolade to reach, that of doctor who!

when you have twins one being a doctor and one being a creative person straight away you have a "feck it and run situation!"

A mixture of bad attitude, stigma and prejudice has blighted my twin and my life for three and a half years, the sum total of years my twin has lived here as an adult woman.

All have contributed not only to my twin at the top of her career and profession being reduced to tears but seeing her twin who is at the bottom rung in everything being reduced to abuse, blame and name calling has been far too great for even a professional social worker to bear.

My country can indeed be judged by looking at the twins here.
everyone admires a doctor!
no one likes a person once in the mental health system, they have not an idea how to say 'hello' as there is no pedigree behind that!
but there IS one pedigree actually and here lies the truth of it and the lie of it all.

both are highly intelligent.
both are honest and hard working.
both loved the jobs and careers they chose and have no regret in this
both accept the other for being the doctor and the near beggar.
well accept when it doesn't hurt too bad to see what society does to the beggar!

when we get such a mix as has happened we have a relationship time bomb.
we have twins not just at war about twin stuff and twin stuff is far more than being a twin, there are many great papers on 'being a twin' you can be stumped when reading them, i was!

but you can also be stumped to see attitude, prejudice, stigma and hatred played about with in twins lives that would have you reeling if you were aware enough to see it happening.

there is no excuse to treat either differently than the other.
both are highly intelligent.
both are honest and hard working
both loved their jobs and had no regrets
both did well.

in a small isolated insular country the word of 'the doctor' be in in philosophy or medical, they drop the platters and come running when the person on the other end of the phone has been named as the doctor in the house.
any house.
but sure be it, drop everything when doctors speaks, comes, or arrives.
when a beggar, of beggaring financial status only she isnt a beggar, but when a mental beggar, she isnt mental but that ONCE was a status laid upon her but then refuted and apologised for, but it makes no difference in a small isolated insular country, it breeds attitude of a horrible kind altogether.
when an artist with a lot of emotional temperament comes, what happens in this mixed, are you beginning to see the scene on your screen?
well i am.
Oh darling dear professor come here to me...
oh shit everyone leave the theatre, we have a nutter on the loose.
Well, thats theatre for you anyway.
problem is, it happens.
and it happens in Ireland.
I have judged a country by the way it judges and sees one pair of identical twins.
yep.

Being an identical twin from political prospective

i am an identical twin.

Twins fascinate others.
We are used in medical studies because the idea that disease can be caused by environment and by genetics and by autoimmune difficulties interests the medics.

To determine if a disease is caused by a specific environment they may watch twins and see if they have a different environment and how different and what may be there that switches on disease.

Being a twin, identical, also in a political sphere has equal curiosity and also unequal bias toward the better and the worst of it.

Let me explain.

Difference in a population is very evident.
Many may discount it by saying 'ah no that would never happen.'
It does.
You can be from the same gene pool, have the same dna, same country passport, same education, equal intelligence but its what you do from the age of 18 onwards that makes all the difference in the world to what happens you and how you are viewed.

This is why identical twins are interesting politically.
How do people react to twins who are identical yet extremely different.
Who comes off better both economically and socially and also who can be relied on and who can be accepted and which will never be.

You couldnt have more difference to one identical twin being a senior social worker of international repute, with doctor in front of her name and one being a vibrant, blousy artist, with no doctor in front of her name and nothing of international repute.
What i share is the intelligence part, we both have more or less the exact same IQ.  its higher than average, so this isnt what stopped a professional educaition for one of us.

We then split at age 18 and chose to live in different countries.
Here is where it gets interesting.
Ireland had nothing to offer - hence one twin left.
Simply because she knew what she wanted to do and where she wanted to go.

One had no idea.  She stayed in the poor country and remained poor, very poor.
She remains a very fine artist.

We now have a divergence of sorts.
We have an academic versus a creative individual.

We have a wealthy nation in the 70's accepting one from a poor nation.
We have a poor nation with nothing to offer a bright intelligent sparkling individual who is broke and there isn't much one can do about it.

Grants for third level education was available for anyone, in the more wealthy nation.
There was no such thing here in ireland.
you went on the dole, you queued for the food mountain beef and cheese.
You squatted, got menial jobs and try to become famous!

If we add just a few other items to this identical twin gene pool.
Both twins had very difficult times adjusting to adult life.
But a lot of people DO!
In a wealthy nation you are given support and an education during the support.
In a poor country you are given the local asylum and darn all education - i assembled plugs and sat in a factory row packing black bin bags.
This i did under the name of 'industrial therapy'
I got 1.50p per week and that went on cigarettes.
(i had recourse to wander into such a day centre recently, in all the time i have been out of it and also in that system nothing has changed.  men sat round packing sanitary towels, i guess they still too call it industrial therapy)!

there is nothing one can do with poverty at the crossroads.
Crossroads in social adjustment
crossroads in education
crossroads in the game of 'chance'

There was nothing you could have done any differently.
I was shy and scared.
My poor mother saw how unhappy i was so she enlisted a daughter of a family friend to try and help.
a psychiatrist.
This led to decades in this system.

Who knows what life the other half, the identical twin had when away.
Did she run into the same difficulties?
If so how did she deal with them?

We are not to know.

What we do know for sure, she came home at the top of her career, she came home with a doctorate and creds to burn and rightly so.

I think if i had left i could have been afforded both the education and the chances that went with this.

I chose to do Artistic pursuits.
I loved it.
I guess being poverty stricken wasnt that nice but i didnt really care.
I was doing what i liked, just as the identical twin was.

I didnt like being lonely and scared and being in a lunatic asylum for THAT alone!

Nor did i like when my twin returned after 40 odd years to see the separation that can happen to identical twins of different social and economic status.
the difference is stark and is being visited upon both of us daily.

Ireland holds education as the key to advancement.
Ireland holds educated people dearly.
Ireland does not hold 'difference' well at all and considered those with difference are a bit like dandruff.  they fall on your shoulders constantly and never go away.

Lets look at these identical twins forty years hence.
If the twin abroad had social and economic stress she has overcome the best part of it through education and choice.

If the twin in ireland had social and economic stress and had overcome the best part of it, doesnt matter at all, for history is long in Ireland (we enjoy our sense of history too you know).

but if you have overcome the social shyness and fears it doesn't mean you are now on a level playing field.  You are not, for no one will ever let you forget that as a vulnerable niaive wee 18 yr old you found life frightening and ended in the lunatic.
There are notes to refer to - we are a small country so everyone has access to these, just about everyone can see a 'history'

but if in a wealthy country with 48 million who would care if you were once in a place like that.
they see you with the Dr. in front of your name and rightly so.  they would not be bothered to try and seek out the unsavoury unless you were a threat to the nation.

If you are poor with a doctorate - the doctorate part will help you no end.
it happens, i have seen it.
its an effective tool  Ireland adores educated people.
It doesnt adore those of us who though educated are not professional and thus again are nothing.

You can say you sold to the american ambassador.
you can say you have six irish book design awards for books i wrote for children and also illustrated.
you can have a commentator saying "a wonderful up and coming writer/illustrator for children in a article and book but if you have no money, were once in psychiatry for being shy, you will be treated differently til the day you die.

and when you see how this does work in identical twins and how they are constantly being split by the political systems of politics and health.
the educated doctor gets the better slice of the cake.
the other gets abuse.
We both see this.
its staring us in the face.

it is happening daily.

so this personal study of identical twins tells me all i want to know on the political level.

Ireland reveres the educated with Dr. in front of their names.
it hates Difference and even hates more the poor.
Read my previous blogs and i can account detail after detail of the running film of stigma, splitting, and acceptance and rejection.

Remember in all this at the end of life aged 60yrs.
we are back together after growing up in different economic and social and professional and career choices.
We are back together more genetically identical than we even thought - we have a rare medical combo for which as yet there is no diagnosis but an approximation to what is happening - we have a parkinsons type condition and also a muscle wasting component.

We are back together in the same country EQUALLY educated.
many who stayed did find education outside the universities.  Its called the education of life and also self education in all things of importance.
I just didn't sit an exam for any of it.

We BOTH can hold our heads up high for all we achieved.
In social life, in economic life and in the citizenship.
We both GAVE back in equal portions.
Do we get the same reverence, respect, approval and services - NO we do not.
one is revered, the other is cast aside like dirt.

MY friend we have a nation not ready to say its modern.  I did point out this before.
so my study in twinship from the perspective of both education, economics and status is quite an  interesting one.
Every day i watch how the services will treat this incident and i am usually right.
I win not.  i go jam side down on everything.

the buttered  and jammied bread is the swiss roll for the twin.

I defy anyone to consider this moral.
we are equal in all things, even now in desease yet treated so differently it beggars belief and understanding.
i detect another identical twin research project here.
I am yet, still proud of all i achieved.
very proud of all i have achieved.

it is wrong not to at least try understand the starting point before you make judgements at the end of life.  We are dying.
One is dying in better style than the other, even if its the same condition.
thats my country for you.

Its dirt poor in education right now, for i am at still at the door with my hand on the knocker, begging to be let in.

The sickest joke in an Office in Ireland

Ann put in a dreadful day.

four full days with practically no sleep at night.
this isnt good for a body so unwell.

Stress, builders and HSE.

The mix is a mess and its sick.
There is chaos at the homestead.
the builders are whacking through my home now at ferocious pace when four months of near idleness ran by and my nerves were frayed.

The boss hurling abuse when i pleaded for response to the never ending question 'when will you be out of here?'

so much so the men were now doing work and chosing paving, counter tops etc without even asking if i liked, and placing in before i could say yah or nah.

the HSE also have a lot of questions to answer.
a wonderful Occupational therapist came to my home to give an opinion on the work done to date.  He wasnt from the HSE.

Ramp is not correct - so where was the Occupational therapist of the HSE to make sure it was?
When a HSE OT had been standing there at this ramp with the builder why still is it not right?
Did she write up a report and sketch to make sure the builder knew fully how it was to be placed and the specifications etc?
I do not even know if this interview with the builder was indeed recorded.

Next now to the patio doors.
these are large and of a two window slider doors so heavy.
my beautiful respectful indian OT asked gently would i be able for these with my muscle wasting.
I considered this too.
I responded that before they were put in it was known what i needed here but who was to tell me about weight of doors and who should have known and how was i to know?
The builder would have and so too the OT, HSE  OT who should have been guiding this type of process as this is a health issue rebuild for a disabled woman.
they are heavy and no i dont even like the weight now.
My gentle OT, indian, said if it was a three pane slider it would have been easier.
but then where was the HSE OT.

Next up for scrutiny was the drainage.
instant reaction he didnt like the levels.
neither did i.
the house is lower than the land immediately in front where paving is.
we are subjected to flash flooding.
well now, who should have been keeping an eye on this if i am a patient only and neither builder, surveyor, architect, OT or other.
Only the disabled woman.
certainly the builder should have known.
Also he did know about the flash flooding here.
If you throw grant aid at a disabled woman living on her own and on her own in all sorts of ways, what can you expect but for a builder to just ignore the fact and do what he liked, which he pretty much has on the major aspects of this build.

thats the builder for today then.  And that was the visit from the wonderful Indian OT who reminded me so much of my first Love who also was indian by name Karmarli.

consider now the health issues i have regarding my Occupational therapy needs.
I have been trying to make an appointment with the Occupational therapy manager to arrange a meeting with my twin sister and i.
she rang me today whilst i was lying on my swingseat.
there were builders working behind me but i don't hear that once my hearing aid is out and it was out so that i could place the handset to my ear.

the OT voice i could hear clearly.
she said she had heard i was looking for her.
I had.
she asked me had i given thought to the conversation we had last (this wasnt what i was looking for her for).  she was referring to giving back my powered chair because it was given to me by 'mistake' apparently!
I declined to answer this question so she asked it again.
i followed this up with a question for her.
Will you listen to what i have to say Ms AB
I then told her what i had to say, starting with my traveling to UK to see a renowned Prof and telling her what he had said to me.
suddenly i thought that Ms AB had gone so i asked her "are you there"
i heard muffles and then hoots of laughter, laughing like a hyena.
there was a second person at the other end of the phone but it all sounded a bit far away.
Ms AB the area manager Occupational therapist had put the phone on speaker so that whoever was in the office could hear!
they were having a right bitch and laugh there too.
I handed the handset to my PA from the IWA who is male.
He said "hello" and then listened and handed it back to me.
I took the phone and said 'hello' and i heard a piercing voice scream "there is a man there!"
"Yes! Yes, Ms AB i have my PA here, there is indeed a man here and i am terminating this call, i do not like what i find in this phone call.
you have been laughing at me.  I shall put this phone down and then i shall ring my twin sister and the local area TD.
 which i did.
I was sickened to the stomach.
we have a problem in Ireland if managers within the health service executive deal with phone calls from disabled women in this manner abusing both confidentiality and professionalism by laughing out loud in the office precincts with other members of staff whilst supposedly having a one to one conversation with a client she has rung.

I was so sick i thought i would throw up and i wept.
I turned to my PA.
She had the Speaker phone on!
yes, he agreed as he nodded his head.
How f...sick is that
Yes, he agreed with a nod.

it was a dreadful day at the office.

I can say with full knowledge that we have now a monster in our midst, it is by name The Health Service Executive.
One thing about Dr Reilly he is right on.
It has to go and so too all the area managers of just about every discipline.
if they are like the one i had recourse to try and dialogue with today, they all have to go.
Unfortunately, they are all like the one i had recourse to try and dialogue with today.

correction on previous blog.
when i mentioned i had no family well sorry my dear dear twin, I have you and i love you.
remember as we came up the road side by side on two nearly clapped out whining mobility scooters and remember what i shouted across over the wind.  "i love you mags!"  well actually i shall further correct i shouted "i adore you"
strong words.
Of love
of the HSE i have strong words of utter hatred and there isn't any for that, none yet exist.

Being a woman - in Ireland

being a woman in my country you may think the gender divide is far less here than any place else in say europe.
That the Mama in the home is still the Ban an Ti, being the master of all and dictator with a heart of gold.

what we have actually is suppression.
the more i live the more i see it in the different spheres i now seem to cover.
these spheres are as follows:

I am not wealthy, in deed do not even have a farthing in any bank account.
I am sick and do not have a health insurance worth speaking of.
I am disabled and do not have family support or any help from relatives whatsoever.
I am a woman
I am single
I am 60yrs of age.

i havent one category to help me along against the abuse dished out in all of these spheres here in this country.
Money can buy you out of anything here.
If you are sick someone will support and help and money might add a bit here too.
if you are sick and in hospital you may have a family member watching, indeed now the family are a must if you are to stay alive in hospital and have someone feed you if that is needed and talked to the doctors if that is needed and even as far as check the meds - just in case, because mistakes are being made.
If you are disabled you may need transport and mobility, if you have a family member that might help or a friend or money.  if you have none of these you are washed up and waiting.
if you need appliances, you can buy em or ask someone to advocate for these if you do not feel strong enough.
if you are a woman alone you are sunk and can be mashed because there is no one to face shit really if that abuser is found out and this fact is usually known.
men are needed because men have demanded they will neither speak to a woman, believe a woman or treat a woman well.
so the men have to be there so that answers can be got and services obtained.

this my friend is stigma by gender and abuse because of gender.
this is the divide in Ireland without equality nor any form of redress.

you can be called names to your face and to others, very slanderous names and you have no fora to report abuse and receive justice.
you can make representations til the cows come home but unless you are supported you are screaming out hot air to stones.
there is nothing you can do against the burocracy of old stones.

also when a woman alone aged 60yrs you are now on that ladder of importance at the pain treshold of ten and the ladder rung of zero or even mixed up on the clay where the ladder is leaning.
certainly at this point climbing power is so weak its impossible to make an impression.

Reports of abuse, slander, injustice, letters for aid, for assistance, appliances and communication - well for the single woman without anyone these all go against you or get past on to another 'division' or sector and reports can be continually reviewed by another which come up with the same answer, never in your favour and always against you.
the answers remain constantly the same even if grossly unfair or inaccurate and purposely done so to protect the collective good, of which you have no part or place.
you can scream to the winds and no one has the ear or hearing aid in.
you are alone against what is now written in the reports and its known that even if government officials are alerted and bodies set up to oversee the rights of the vulnerable are there to appeal to the answers are the same, there is no justice.

One minister has even said to me and my twin "we are good at doing reports but it means nothing"
this is the essence of Irish moral standards and standards adhered to in the face of most things, human rights, legislation and equality.
you can try but never win.
mentally ill are being trod all over and budgets absorbed into some place else but not into health care in that sector.
the elderly once served well with a type of treatment are now being given the cheaper options which are useless and do not work.
we also have funds now lying there within the department of health to the tune of 18million.
we seemingly have a cache of unspent coppers to this sum there and there are people having wheelchairs taken off them and young women with crohns disease not allowed a medical card.
yet there is still unspent funds for this year to this sum, its a lot of money gone unspent on health care.
this money is being accrued i believe illegally, it is waiting for the next crisis for this to be used, and it wont be health.
we have ministers not using their votes and we have abstaining from votes on major issues of local, national and international importance.
but ireland gives no one answers to anything.

they do reports.
they also have free rein to lash out at those most vulnerable
they cannot and will not allow themselves to be accountable or make reparation.
they have covered themselves entirely every way.
if you are a woman in ireland you are doomed to the sub classes with no power, clout or influence.
you can cry and cry and cry...many do.
i know one.
there are no answers to being a woman in ireland

when you join your very own - what do you get?

its a frightening thing indeed to move back into your own social strata after decades in the one below!

this is because society has 'classed' people and each class reacts or acts in a certain fashion.

I was placed in the sub-class decades ago but now i wonder was it in fact ever that, and who decides anyway?

when i was quite young really and struggling i was more or less booted out by my own er, class.
Yes, pretty much so.
penniless and jobless in the 70's i applied for social housing.
I was to be the first on this side of the pond to ever do this.
so this in itself was something to be rejected for and shamed for.
I lived amongst murderers, indeed my very first next door neighbour was a murderer, done his sentence and then lived peaceably beside me and i sat on the road with him many a sunny day.
Literally on the road, the leafy valleys and gardens of Killiney now all gone but the concrete of the tenement path now mine, with the druggies and the alkies and the murderers, wife beaters and chancers.

For the first time in my life i was happy.
I guess when booted out and left you do begin to take charge.  i took charge.
from not even one wooden chair i had to take charge.
not even a bathroom or a kitchen and wallpaper never holding on the walls i had to take charge.
add then to the butter mountains and beef mountains of europe i queued with my plastic bag.
A far cry from the Holy Child Jesus Killiney School for young ladies.
it was battlegrounds.

but these people became my own.
they actually had a moral code of conduct.
they stuck by you and supported you and watched out and over you.
they also saw sometimes your naievity and warned you of the people needed warning against, even the murderer warned me about people to watch for and make sure i didnt let them inside.

but doors could remain unlocked and open.
there was one across the road and there i went every day to sit with my dumpy adopted mom.
yes she was i adored her.
we sat and chatted and had a cup of tea and gorgeous bikkies always ready in that tin there.

we talked about the black and tans and how she had a boiled egg on easter sunday and the leg of mutton hanging over an open fire with a skewer for christmas dinner if they were so lucky.

I was very happy, i flourished and settled down.
i concentrated on improving my home and working to improve my art.
writing and illustrating books and designing greeting cards.
all added up to a bit in the bank or post office and nice furniture.
no, the middle class never clapped eyes on me again, hardly ever visited and least cared about me.

time moved on.  Decades.
everytime i was in mental pain and trouble and that was often i was considered just that, trouble, again by the middle class.
i was a bloody nuisance with my troubles, to them that is.
i was troubled to myself and that was that, troubled.
i had a shocking start and i had brain damage.
but no middle class person ever gave any of that an inch of thought.
i was 'ah Ann, she is 'trouble.'

but when i got into serious trouble with social housing it was decades fast forward.
the shift in times had come but not so badly as i had envisaged.
i dont blame the enclave the social housing authorities had placed me, it was far from where i had come both in one working class group and from my middle class background.
all men they were and very rough, unemployed used to drugging up and hanging themselves, leaving the mother with the babies.
but they also had troubled lives so they are not at fault, life is as it is.  the people to take responsibility are the people who are entrusted with this role when many couldnt take it.
they abused their power and treated people badly.
all people badly.
people in social housing in Ireland were the rejected and still are.
they are worth nothing in anyone's eyes, ever.

so when i was placed with a crowd of men who couldnt or wouldnt, or who didnt have a culture of working they knew they had placed a middle class woman with disabilities in a very vulnerable place and also a volitile place.
it did come to pass that my middle class status got to the drinking men.
my door was rapped at night in drunken stupers, i was accused of things i couldnt possibly have done, one being someones plant in the middle of his back garden!
children too were off the rails and hanging from them.  wild and brazen i got it there too.
i went into a mini madness of utter terror.
until the day i was shot at and so fleeing county was the stratedgy.
the ones that placed me where they did admitted it was a dreadful place for me, as too had the HSE but then no one takes responsibility for these sorts of things in Ireland.
what happens here if mistakes are made the phrase is 'you must move on' meaning forget it mate.
i had to literally move on and away from all i adored.
this time i was plumbing for middle class country.
i felt it best i got back to my roots in another county.
but what a failure as i fully now in the realm of all i had hated.
the brutality which is middle class utter snobbery and blame another and then tell the other to 'move on'
but middle class people do things a very different way and now i realise i am not altogether pleased with it.
they seem to feel they have a god given right to trod all over people's emotions and personalities and characters.
this is even without even getting to know a person or inviting them into their homes.
they make their assumptions from afar or on one meeting certainly not on a few.
you can be tarred and feathered within a day in this place.
you can be called anything here and have no comeback.
so far in my lovely middle class neighbourhood i have been called 'dangerous' and 'a tramp'
yep, thats what i have been called.
nice isnt it for a holy child jesus child to be called this.
and also for a very sick person with a disability but who is vulnerable now.
anything goes here.
but then i think i knew that coming from a family of 'lord of the flies ilke.'
the most unforgiving of all classes in society are the middle classes.
because they have grandiose ideas without the backup.
they think they have this right.
to slash and burn and then tell you 'to forget it and move on!'
well in my book you dont do that.
you treat people with respect.
I did, and i was taught to and i certainly learnt to, both from school, from doing charity work every living decade of my life and of course from the sub class of society.
we did respect and we tried to help without lumbering in there and demolishing.
but here they dont help, but certainly lumber in and demolish and seem to think it ok to call you a tramp on your own property, for asking a relatively simple question as 'when do you think you will be finishing up here?' as in 'this is taking a very long time, when can i have my home back?
and i am called 'you tramp you!'
he got stroppy and i told him to leave, and on leaving i am labelled a tramp.
i am not liking the style of the middle classes at all right now.
will it improve.
i dont know.
if the middle classes want it to improve maybe it will.
but i am not happy about it.
i want to return to the decent people.
when you have nothing absolutely nothing, you are all on level ground.
not here, there are the ones who trash and the ones who get trashed, and very viciously too.
it isnt nice, i hate it.

Blogging allows for reasonable justice to be done

it has been over a year and a month that i crash landed in my new county....literally.
I was so so tired that my adapted van went out of control and i hit a neighbours tree, taking out the tree and the van.
I was unharmed....by the crash, the tree or the van.
I wasnt so lucky with the area HSE which is our Health Service Executive and the local area care teams.
You come to a new area an unknown, but does that also say that the new area makes up their mind on you within a month and thereafter you are literally 'outted' by the people who are about the most powerful in your life.
if you have a disability and need these powerful people the HSE then you have fouled up your chance of best care.
I didnt foul anything.
i fell foul of the HSE and the care provider.

blogging gives way a sense that someone hears you, unlike the hse who do it 'their way'
and whilst they do it 'their way' the most cruel, insensitive, undemocratic and unjust way i say what i can here.
because so far justice has not prevailed.

what can you do against a powerful body who brandishes you 'a danger to staff.'
yes, syou would be mortified to write such a statement in a blog.
but i am NOT because it isnt true.
i wouldnt hurt a fly.
but a year and one month later i am still named as such and services in my new county are a scandal.
This, too I have to say because most disabled people in Ireland have gone underground for the fear that is within them.
and i say it because to receive a label such as 'dangerous to staff' is an outrage in itself.
to receive little care is just as outrageous and if we do not speak of it, then the country, its health service and its government is no better than producing a weakened population driven by hitlerism ideals and a 'pathwaying' which we know is happening even in the UK right now.
i am 60yrs of age and refuse to be silenced, refused to take a label such as this lying down and refuse to be pathwayed out of life after a life pathwayed by the HSE and its consultants which was torrid in extreme.
when you find a voice, become a person who wishes to both engage in society, be responsible for ones life and not do silly things anymore i do have a right to be considered equal and this i am not.
once you feel equal, act as if equal and take measures to be the best person you can be and contribute to society as i have done then no one, certainly not health care professionals will spread rumours and inuendos and condemn me without recourse to 'right of reply' you put your response in the blog.
Justice for me must come for now i find that i took measure to improve my life after the hse left me sitting duck to children with guns and boozing men who attacked me with verbal abuse and end in more abuse dished out by the hse.
it has to end for me and my twin.
we deserve...i say....we deserve better than this, far better.
both have been passionate to bring best practise to those vulnerable, both qualified to bring best practise and ease the burden of lives for people and train up others to do the same, as my twin did, and i trained to encourage elders to feel better about themselves through Arts & Empowerment and they did, i showed them some ways to do this, and i also brought them relief from the monotony of once again our critically ill nursing home care homes.
so at 60yrs of age i am now on the receiving end of such injustice i found in the nursing homes, and my twin found in the places and circumstances she found through her social work career.
I will not allow the HSE to bring my twin and i down so far we reel in the gutter of despair.
the way forward is to speak out and speak out using every vehicle available.
this is one such way.
please speak both for us and for all suffering in Ireland today. there are many

communication mixture

yes, i guess that is what i have to say right now.
the communication seems to have gone a bit pear shaped and we feel it.

Along with the communication or lack of it comes the contrast of those who have and those who do not.
this my friends is evident in extreme.

communicating care and consideration isn't so much an art i would have thought.
Most humans have this facility, or so i believed.
But when it comes to our nearest and dearest even if you hoped this came naturally by virtue of being part of family you do get the shock when it doesn't.
it isn't even there.
no where in sight.
and it is so so obvious.

that fleeting visit to 'see what is up' in the land of the relative.
the yearly snoop in and the swoop out.
for that is what it feels like and that is what i call a communication mixture, or should that be 'mix up?'
You are left with the tear in the side of the eye.
The effort of brushing up the floors, wiping down counters and buying in the biscuits.
In hopeful anticipation and excitement of communication - with the family.
but you get the mixed messages.
the watching the clock by glance, the taking of a mobile call.
the statements of 'i cannot stay long' and you knew they wouldn't anyway.

You hurt inside that you are not worth it at all.
to hear the lack of. in the tone, the gesture and the hasty good byes and the 'blast it, why did they bother.'
you walk away or back through the hall door and close it behind the retreating army.
 The tears well up in the eyes.
You take out a painting to try and fix the warped frame.
you slam the nail in, miss and hit the bloody thumb knuckle.
you are angry at the rejection.
you get so angry you talk about Wills and the past and 'why do i expect any different.'

on the other occasion there was effort made, the taste of the starter was sweet and glorious.
effort shown in the presentation and perfection.
the spode on the table and the waterford crystal and silver.
the neat little table with wall adornments catching the eye in awe.
none of my paintings are there, not even a tiny one in the corner, or under the level of the chair.
no image of mine does my closest kin own or put on wall.
but we are now older, and peace must come.
and spode and good food is better than the plastic tubberware and the spoon scooping food as you watch the telly.
we are used to eating the stews and mess that never changes from week to week, so this real food is a delight and pleasure, twinged with the feelings and hurt of decades but what can we say when the decades leave us as the elders in the state.
the problematic families are i guess part of being a dysfunctional island.
where the protestant and catholic mix and the bringing up as both royalists and republicans of the last fifty years.
this being in my family tradition.
the feeling of displacement and upset and loss.
the loss of servants and family emigrating.
the feeling of being left behind in less affluent times, the struggle with six kiddies knowing full well in wimbledon there in lies the wealth of the kin.
not so much bitterness within the family but the feeling of estrangement.
the loss of togetherness then left the next generation as more or less the same.
the competition within the siblings echoed the family 'Lord of the flies'
and i am doing the same.
the hurt of it all.
no kinship and contempt there seemed to be reeking from the pores of the well off.
the lack of consideration, communication of kindness but the message is fully clear and understood.
those on the fringe of this family was the single twins.
the least able and the most intelligent.
we were fodder for decades of built up resentment, bitterness and disenchantment.
the bitterness born of the competitive, angry growling members of a middle class mix of once wealthy and now not so, yet some gained back wealth and suddenly we had the selfishness that goes with 'attitude of grandour'
we cannot regain a past time ever.
but some did try and brought with it such spoilt brats its unbelievable.
the lack of christianity is full seen with all this screaming.
the fleeting visit,
the holes in the roof, the spode on the table and eating then from tubberwares.
we are a family divided and with that brings such pain it beggars belief.
the need for togetherness and kinship i yearn for, but with the closing of the hall door, the whack on the knuckle on the now bruised knuckle and the pain of feeling no love from them and toward them, cuts deep to the broken soul of a sick individual who is waiting to die.
and shall do so alone, very.
The Will.
finally i shall end with the Will.
nothing is Willed on to anyone, nothing at all.
it goes to one which is united in the same grief.
not one single member gets anything.
not that i had much to give in the first place.
but the Will is made.
if you do not care in Living then you do not reap in dying.
amen to that.  what a sad life its been.  it doesnt look as if its going to end with a swan song either.